Ballot Questions

1. No
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes

I don't really see why there is a cap on Charter Schools in the first place other than The Teachers Union would probably get pretty pissy about competition.
 
meddlepal said:
I don't really see why there is a cap on Charter Schools in the first place other than The Teachers Union would probably get pretty pissy about competition.
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Something to do with limited resources and institutional crisis.
 
I read question 4 and it didnt specify where the tax dollars went, whereas Colorado it goes towards schools. I wonder if some of it can be used for the T but also we do need to remember there are more cities in the state besides Boston and they could use some cash. Hopefully some of it can though, its going to be huge to get an influx of millions of dollars in tax revenue that did not exist before.
 
^I'd love to see Springfield either reroute or ground I-91. That's definitively a city with lots of untapped potential.
 
Worcester could also use an airport highway connection, although nearly impossible at this point.
 
stick n move said:
Worcester could also use an airport highway connection, although nearly impossible at this point.
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It's blocked solid from direct access to I-290 by the residential grid, so requires coming out of downtown to reach. But rush-hour traffic aside it's considerably less difficult than it appears because the directions are very easy to follow. Take Cambridge St. right at the 290/146 interchange and head west to where it merges into Route 9. Or Main St. out of dead-center downtown. 2.5 miles either way to Goddard Memorial Dr., not a single turn required. WRTA bus #2 makes the trip.

The problem becomes more apparent just by turning on Google terrain view. Yikes! And the otherwise extremely well-built and under-capacity access road looks like for the entire 2 miles up to the terminal from Route 9: https://goo.gl/maps/zMnLbmphByT2. That's an unbroken sustained grade; it never gets better than that. And this is what the terminal driveway looks like: https://goo.gl/maps/N9tpFp4uJup. If Massport wants to increase the amount of air freight out of there they're probably going to need to build a runaway truck ramp or two, because that's Pike in The Berkshires -level bad.

Bonus: this is the very first place in the state east of the Berkshires to ice over, and it has the most fog delays of any airport in New England. Everybody has their hopes and dreams for this 2D canvas right inside New England's 2nd-largest city...but the third dimension does not cooperate. At all.
 
^ i thought they were spending millions and millions of dollars to update one of the systems that makes fog almost obsolete for landings.
 
stick n move said:
^ i thought they were spending millions and millions of dollars to update one of the systems that makes fog almost obsolete for landings.
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"Obsolete" is a bit strong. It'll be less of a factor, but it's still a factor.


It also doesn't solve the problem of needing to drive up and down that hill in such frequently limited visibility to reach the airport or fetch air freight from the airport. And most definitely doesn't help their region-worst icing problems. Any which way it's a compromised facility because of the suddenness of the rise in elevation.
 
Moving freight to PVD or MHT makes more sense. The airport infrastructure is already there and it's a similar distance to Boston. I don't think there is a pressing need to upgrade ORH (Worcester).

Handscom would make the most sense as a secoundary airport. However the wealthy residents of Bedford/Concord/Lexington would have a fit.
 
tysmith95 said:
Moving freight to PVD or MHT makes more sense. The airport infrastructure is already there and it's a similar distance to Boston. I don't think there is a pressing need to upgrade ORH (Worcester).

Handscom would make the most sense as a secoundary airport. However the wealthy residents of Bedford/Concord/Lexington would have a fit.
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Hanscom doesn't make any sense as a secondary passenger airport. It's too damn close to Logan. It's an exploitable asset for sure, but we tend to overrate Hanscom to absurd degree every time this Logan alternative conversation comes up. T.F. Green will serve that auxiliary role well as it scales up, and Bradley gets a whole lot more accessible to Western MA with the Hartford Line and increased Amtrak presence (and they truly do have a few international flights, and aims to reel in more). Manchester would complete the load-spreading if NH would ever shit or get off the pot on its commuter rail, but past-Nashua is looking like an extremely tall order. Logan already does large air freight volumes, and we really haven't tapped much demand for more than that. Brainerd Airport in Hartford is the only one in the region that makes good buck catering heavily to air freight over passenger, and that's still a pretty small airport. I would say there's more overall freight potential at Westover than Worcester if the Air Force wants to allow some private revenue generation there. Worcester can work a slightly bigger niche in that sector...but niche it will always be.
 
^I was specifically referencing freight. It would make sense if Fedex and UPS air move to Handscom once Logan runs out of space for terminal growth and landing slots. Of course this is far into the future.

In London Stansted is used for UPS and Fedex freight while the main passenger hub is Heathrow. If the Boston region continues to grow I could see something like that happening here.
 
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